I am a best-selling author, and an extremely proud Forbes alum. A former writer and editor at Business Week, Inc. and Financial World, in addition to my six years at Forbes, I've written, co-written and “ghosted” numerous best-sellers including Customers for Life (with Carl Sewell.) My latest book, which I co-authored with Leonard A. Schlesinger and Charles F. Kiefer is Just Start: Take Action; Embrace Uncertainity; Create the Future published by Harvard Business Review Press. A long-time contributor to The New York Times, I'm also a contributing editor to both The Conference Board Review (where I also write a column) and M.I.T.’s Sloan Management Review. I'm a graduate of Rutgers College and Rutgers University Law School and am a member of both the New Jersey and Massachusetts bars, although I ask that you don't hold that against me.

How To Keep Yourself From Doing Non-Essential Stuff

I used to make my own bread. It’s not that I particularly like to bake–it’s okay, but I don’t find the emotional fulfillment from it that some people do–I did it because I couldn’t get good bread where I lived.

I now spend about half my life in and around Manhattan, an area of the country where good bread is an art form. I no longer bake.

My ice cream maker is collecting dust. Ditto that pasta maker. What I’ve found is there are people who can do what I used to and do it better, or at least as well as me, and so my time could be spent on other more productive things.

Yes, of course, I know the owner is only suppose to concentrate on the most essential stuff. But:

A) I can do the non-essential work in my business faster than most people.

B) I hate having outstanding things lingering. So, I figure I will do what needs to be done now–even if it isn’t the sort of thing I should be doing–and get it out of the way. Then I’ll go back to my work after that. Dumb, I know, but that is how I am wired (and how you may be wired, too.)

Let me tell you how I have gotten better about this using a real example.

I am working on a complicated project for the company which is now my biggest client. I did a solid piece of work on this one particularly segment and while the client said he liked it, he had some revisions he wanted to make.

I looked at his revisions and realized the rework could essentially be divided into two parts. There was about an hour needed to tweak his ideas–which were surprisingly good; my fiddling with them could make them even better–and then about six hours of scut work. There was a whole lot of copy editing and revising of Excel spreadsheets that would be needed to be done to accommodate all the changes. It wouldn’t be hard. Just time consuming.

Before, I would have just done everything myself over the weekend. But I am trying to get better about this and so I delegated the scut work. What got me to pull the switch? Well, I am vaguely under-employed at the moment and I really needed a block of time to try to drum up more work. I spent those six hours last Saturday, when I would have playing with Excel, to create two proposals that could geneate about $150,000 in new business.

Now, I wish I could say passing on the semi-mindless work was easy for me. It wasn’t. The client sent me the revisions on Thursday and I could have had everything done 48 hours later. While I did the tweaking to improve his ideas late Thursday, I won’t have the rest of the work back from the person I delegated to for another week. It doesn’t screw up the deadline. We will be fine. But it is still a week longer than if I did the work myself.

Yes, knowing that I got the proposals out the door makes me feel good. But I think the bigger take away for me from this is every time I am about to do something that really could be handled by someone else–even if I have to outscource it and pay for the privledge–I am going to ask “is this the absolute best use of time.”

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Sometimes I think we’re you! Once again, you’ve described a type of behavior we’re guilty of in our business. It just seems easier and faster to do it ourselves than to outsource it. And, you’re right, what we end up doing is spending time on things that aren’t getting us sales, our biggest need right now.

A couple of peripheral issues can come into play, as well, I think: bad experiences with people chosen to do the work; lack of revenue to pay outside suppliers.

Despite that, Paul, you have it exactly right again and we’ll keep on trying! Thanks for another straightforward, practical article.

I worked in “outsourcing” for about 14 years, managing operations, learning and development and quality for some world renown corporations…. your writing is so basic and hits the spot on! letting go is the key is my thought. delegation is a highly evolved art and science and its a pity so few of us understand and use it to increase productivity. Thank you Paul for this beautiful article. :)

Mr. Paul, I am glad to read about one of your experiences you share. I’d like to say that you shouldn’t waste your time with a mindless stuffs and it’d be better to delegate some to others you trust, so I agree with you to some extent. However, sometimes you prefer to do every piece of work in your project to avoid revising again your work even after delegation to others. Doing every nutshell of work make you more satisfied with your job and feeling strong in any further debates. Thanks Paul for your share. Ahmed Hassan Explorationist, Eni Cairo

This is great information — whether for a seasoned professional trying to squeeze more billable hours into a day, or an upstart entrepreneur who needs 26 hours in a day.

My company helps provide outsourcing solutions through virtual and on-site personal assistance. Sometimes, our biggest challenge is training professionals to off-load their non-essential work so they can focus on revenue, career growth, and personal time.